Some bad news and some good news
In many ways, Italy is different. For one thing, I was taught at school as a child, we have no tradition of racism like in America. For another, the leading schools in Italy - the schools where the rich children go, where the best teachers are found, and which insure a swift passage to the best university courses - are generally state schools. For this there are a lot of historical reasons, including the fact that the oldest schools in each town were, at the time of Unification (1859-1861), taken over by the State, with all their traditions and prestige.
The city of Caserta, where the kings of Naples built one of Europe's most fabulous royal palaces, has one such school, named after the great historian Pietro Giannone, within walking distance of the royal palace. By tradition, catchment area, expectation, the Pietro Giannone Middle School is expected to provide good teaching.
First the bad news. A few days ago, a Class 2 (12-year-old) class got back the results of a Geography test. These are kids who take their results seriously, as you would expect, and they immediately compared results - as you always do in Italian schools, as I well remember doing. And one girl was very disturbed to find that a boy who had given, answer after answer, the very same answers as she had, had been awarded a 9, whereas she had been awarded a 7.
(A note on Italian school marking. In theory, and by immemorial tradition, all schoolwork in junior schools is marked from 0 - minimum - to 10 - maximum. As a matter of fact, however, teachers only ever use the marks from 5 to 9. 4 and below are only awarded in case of work that is not just bad, but culpably bad, and 10 is reserved for rare and absolutely exceptional performances; most children never see either. Of the normally given marks, 5 means a fail, 6 a poor pass, 7 "could do better", 8 is solid achievement, and 9 is excellence. To any Italian child, to award 7 and 9 for the same piece of work is injustice of Snape-esque proportions. Now let us move on.)
Come the next Geography lesson, the young girl walked up to the teacher, faced her with the two test papers, and asked why hers was marked so much lower. And the answer of the teacher - a woman in her forties, married and with children of her own - was clearly heard across the whole classroom: "You are different. You are black."
Yes, I forgot to mention it. The child had some African descent. Does it matter?
Crushed, the child made the ten-mile trek back to her desk, as the stunned, silent class looked on. And when she comes home at the end of the day, it doesn't take long for her mother to realize that there is something very wrong with her daughter.
Now the good news. The next day, the mother demands and is given an immediate appointment to see the Headmistress (whose name is reported in the article: Maria Bianco - let us mention it with proper honour). She tells her story and plays an audio tape where her daughter had recorded her experience. It is still morning, between the second and the third period. The Headmistress marches out of her office, goes straight to the little girl's class, shuts the door behind her, and asks the children to recount in their own words exactly what happened. She receives an unanimous account that confirms almost word for word the mother's charge: "She said, you are different, you are black."
That very day, the Headmistress suspends the teacher, and starts a procedure with the Education Ministry with a view to more adequate sanctions. When the other teachers are told, the general view is: "Well, she asked for it." I guess old school traditions can count for something after all.
(According to today's Corriere della Sera website, all these things happened this week.)
The city of Caserta, where the kings of Naples built one of Europe's most fabulous royal palaces, has one such school, named after the great historian Pietro Giannone, within walking distance of the royal palace. By tradition, catchment area, expectation, the Pietro Giannone Middle School is expected to provide good teaching.
First the bad news. A few days ago, a Class 2 (12-year-old) class got back the results of a Geography test. These are kids who take their results seriously, as you would expect, and they immediately compared results - as you always do in Italian schools, as I well remember doing. And one girl was very disturbed to find that a boy who had given, answer after answer, the very same answers as she had, had been awarded a 9, whereas she had been awarded a 7.
(A note on Italian school marking. In theory, and by immemorial tradition, all schoolwork in junior schools is marked from 0 - minimum - to 10 - maximum. As a matter of fact, however, teachers only ever use the marks from 5 to 9. 4 and below are only awarded in case of work that is not just bad, but culpably bad, and 10 is reserved for rare and absolutely exceptional performances; most children never see either. Of the normally given marks, 5 means a fail, 6 a poor pass, 7 "could do better", 8 is solid achievement, and 9 is excellence. To any Italian child, to award 7 and 9 for the same piece of work is injustice of Snape-esque proportions. Now let us move on.)
Come the next Geography lesson, the young girl walked up to the teacher, faced her with the two test papers, and asked why hers was marked so much lower. And the answer of the teacher - a woman in her forties, married and with children of her own - was clearly heard across the whole classroom: "You are different. You are black."
Yes, I forgot to mention it. The child had some African descent. Does it matter?
Crushed, the child made the ten-mile trek back to her desk, as the stunned, silent class looked on. And when she comes home at the end of the day, it doesn't take long for her mother to realize that there is something very wrong with her daughter.
Now the good news. The next day, the mother demands and is given an immediate appointment to see the Headmistress (whose name is reported in the article: Maria Bianco - let us mention it with proper honour). She tells her story and plays an audio tape where her daughter had recorded her experience. It is still morning, between the second and the third period. The Headmistress marches out of her office, goes straight to the little girl's class, shuts the door behind her, and asks the children to recount in their own words exactly what happened. She receives an unanimous account that confirms almost word for word the mother's charge: "She said, you are different, you are black."
That very day, the Headmistress suspends the teacher, and starts a procedure with the Education Ministry with a view to more adequate sanctions. When the other teachers are told, the general view is: "Well, she asked for it." I guess old school traditions can count for something after all.
(According to today's Corriere della Sera website, all these things happened this week.)